Voodoo Man (1944)

I said in the announcement for this year's October Fest that a lot of what we're going to be looking at is stuff that I've had sitting in what I call the "nosebleed section" in my closet for a long time and need to get rid of; that's not quite the case with this first item. I did, however, pick it up at the same place where a lot of the stuff in the nosebleed section came from. Just about every July, I attend G-Fest in the town of Rosemont, just outside of Chicago, and each time, I do a lot of shopping in the enormous and very well stocked vendor's room. There's one vendor in particular whom I always visit, as he often has a lot of great stuff on DVD and Blu-Ray (prepare to read my mentioning him a fair number of times this month, particularly at the beginning). Granted, I've gotten both really good, obscure flicks from him and massive shit-bombs, but his selection is so diverse and interesting that it's worth the coin flip. Not only does he sometimes have items that are on my Amazon shopping list, but also often stuff that I've either heard of and been interested in seeing for a long time, or stuff I've never heard of but looks interesting; Voodoo Man falls into the latter category. In fact, back in 2023, its Blu-Ray from Olive Films was one of a number of Bela Lugosi Poverty Row flicks I picked up from that vendor. While I'd never heard of most of them, being a big Lugosi fan, his presence was enough to pique my interest, and if the movies turned out to be duds overall, I knew that he, at least, would be great. That is the case with Voodoo Man, but even his role here is disappointing. I knew I wanted to do at least one of Lugosi's Monogram films this year, seeing as how I did The Devil Bat as part of the first Schlocktober, so I just cherry-picked this one out of the bunch, mainly because, admittedly, it's one that stuck with me more than some of the others. Even though I know I've seen stuff like The Corpse Vanishes and Invisible Ghost, at the moment, I couldn't tell you much of what they were about, other than Lugosi was in them. But I did remember some stuff from Voodoo Man, such as how it also starred George Zucco and John Carradine, and that it was quite meta for a movie from this period. However, upon re-watching it, I realized why I didn't remember more about it. The plot, even for a Monogram quickie, is nonsensical and bare bones, with a lot of stuff left unexplained; outside of the group of villains, the other characters are pretty bland; and the actors who would attract genre fans are fairly wasted, including Lugosi himself. That said, it's definitely not one of the worst things he was ever in; rather, it's one of his more unremarkable.

On her way to Twin Falls, a young woman stops at a gas station near Laurel Road for directions. The man who runs it, Nicholas, instructs the woman to keep going until she comes upon a fork in the road and then turn right. But, when she drives off, Nicholas uses a hidden phone in the station to alert someone of her approach. Heading down the road and veering to the right like he said, the woman's car suddenly stops on her. Two men then emerge from the nearby bushes and abduct her, making her the third female motorist who's disappeared on that road, with no trace of the cars. Reading about this in the newspaper, S.K., a producer at the Banner Motion Picture Company, asks one of his writers, Ralph Dawson, to craft a horror film around the scenario. Ralph, however, is on the verge of two weeks' leave in order to get married and is allowed to do so, with S.K. asking him to give the concept some thought in the meantime. On his way to visit his fiancee, Betty Benton, he stops at the same gas station, but a mix-up causes him to leave before his gas tank can be filled up, and he runs out far down the road. Shortly afterward, another young woman is directed by Nicholas down the same path as the others. She picks up Ralph and, along the way, he learns that she's Stella Saunders, Betty's cousin, who's going to be the Maid of Honor. When they take the detour, Stella's car suddenly stops and Ralph, unable to figure out the problem, opts to go to a nearby house for help. While he's gone, the two men from before abduct Stella, taking her through a secret hatch in the ground, and dispose of her car as well. Reaching the house, Ralph learns that it belongs to Dr. Marlowe, but the housekeeper doesn't let him in. Returning to the spot and finding both Stella and the car gone, Ralph believes he's been tricked. Meanwhile, Stella is the latest victim in Marlowe's ongoing attempt to use voodoo to transfer the life essence of able-bodied women into his wife. And when Ralph, after making it to Betty's home, learns that Stella never showed up, he realizes he's stumbled into the very scenario his producer wanted him to write a horror movie about.

Produced by Sam Katzman during his tenure at Monogram, where he partnered up with fellow producer Jack Dietz (many of Bela Lugosi's films there were produced under them), Voodoo Man was based on a short story by Andrew Colvin called Tiger Man. But, after Monogram bought the rights to the story, they changed the title and Colvin got no credit whatsoever; indeed, the only writing credit is given to screenwriter Robert Charles (whose only other credit is for another Lugosi Monogram vehicle around this time, Return of the Ape Man). Speaking of which, that film's director, Phil Rosen, was originally intended to direct Voodoo Man but, due to production delays, he became unavailable. Instead, directing duties were assigned to William Beaudine (pictured), an extremely prolific director and one who I talked about during the first Schlocktober, as one of his last films was 1966's Billy the Kid Versus Dracula. In context with this film, it turned out to be the last of several Monogram films he directed with Lugosi, with others including The Ape Man and Ghosts on the Loose. He would work with Lugosi again on 1952's Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, the last movie Lugosi did before he began working with Ed Wood.

This, along with the aforementioned Return of the Ape Man, which featured a number of the same actors, was the last of Bela Lugosi's films for Monogram (it was actually the last one filmed but not the last released). I wish I could say he went out with a bang but, while he does, as per usual, give it his all, Dr. Richard Marlowe isn't one of his best roles. Living in a large house near Laurel Road, Marlowe has an elaborate setup for sending unsuspecting female motorists into a secluded spot where he's able to deactivate their cars' motors, enabling his two cronies, Toby and Grego, the opportunity to abduct them and whisk them away back to his house. There, he has Nicholas, who poses as the owner of the gas station, perform a voodoo ceremony to transfer the women's life essences into his wife, Evelyn, who has been in a state of living death for the past 22 years. Marlowe himself also has some skill at hypnotism, which he uses to force the women to do as he commands. However, time and again, the ceremony fails, with Evelyn only momentarily returning to life when the ceremony is attempted with Stella Saunders, and the process renders the women as virtual zombies. Desperate to find someone with, as Marlowe describes, a "perfect affinity," he presses on. Unfortunately for him, Ralph and Betty's relationship with Stella gets the police involved. While he's able to keep the sheriff from learning anything when he arrives at the house, things get worse for Marlowe when Stella wanders off the property and is picked up by the police. Toby later learns that she's been taken to Betty Benton's home and Marlowe shows up there, posing as a doctor. Pretending to examine Stella, he advises the others to leave her alone, then goes back to his home and has Nicholas perform a ritual to draw her back to them. But when her sudden disappearance prompts Ralph and Betty to pay him a visit, Marlowe, after they've left, believes that Betty may be the one who can resurrect his wife. He has Nicholas uses his power to draw her back to the house, and when the ceremony is performed, it does seem to be working. However, before they can complete it, the police, acting on a tip from Ralph, walk in on the ceremony and Marlowe is fatally shot when he threatens the sheriff. Before he dies, he tells his wife that they will soon be together.

Knowing what a gifted and magnificent actor he could be, it pains me whenever I see John Carradine in a low-rent movie like this, and when he plays a dim-witted character like Toby, one of Dr. Marlowe's henchmen, on top of it. But, that said, Carradine does make the most of his role, portraying Toby as someone who's not inherently malicious and only does what Marlowe orders him to out of fear, as he says Marlowe beats on him when he's angry. He acts very affectionate towards the abducted women, calling them pretty and telling the other henchman, Grego (Pat McKee), not to be so rough with them. He also comes off as someone who's desperate for some companionship. After the ceremony with Stella fails and she joins the other abducted women, who've all been turned into mindless zombies, in the room where they're kept, Toby goes in there to talk with her. He opens up the door to Stella's cell and, when she walks into the doorway, he tells her, "You mustn't come out any further. You shouldn't come out at all. If the master knew you were comin' out, he'd beat me. I just came down to talk to you... Nobody ever talks to me. The master won't talk to me. He doesn't talk to anybody, except when he's angry. I wish you could look at me. Your eyes look so funny. You don't know me, do ya?" His doing this is what leads to Stella wandering out of the house via a tunnel leading to the hatch near the road. When Toby finds that she's gone, he knows Marlowe will beat him for it and begs Grego not to tell him. Grego, however, besides being less mentally slow, also proves to be a snake and runs off to tell Marlowe, resulting in Toby getting thrashed (offscreen, mind you). Marlowe then orders him to find Stella, saying he'll kill him if he doesn't. Fortunately for Toby, he does, allowing Marlowe to show up at the Benton home, posing as a doctor. When Nicholas draws Stella back, Toby admonishes her for wandering off: "You bad girl. You're a very naughty girl. You know you shouldn't have left. I told you you shouldn't go." Carradine also manages to be memorably physical in his performance, walking and running about in a scuttling manner, and playing the drums during the voodoo ceremonies. (When they're preparing for the one involving Stella, you can see him burn his finger with a lit match while walking out of the room.)

I think that George Zucco fares even worse than Carradine, as he has virtually nothing to do as Nicholas. When he's not manning the gas station near Laurel Road, contacting Marlowe via a hidden telephone to inform him of an oncoming woman who may be right for the ceremony, he's performing said ceremony, wearing a ridiculous costume complete with face-paint and a goofy headdress, and speaking a bunch of gibberish. He also uses his influence, in combination with a personal item, to draw any escaped zombies, as well as Betty, when Marlowe gives him one of her silk gloves, to the house. That's all he does. Not that you would expect a lot of detailed backstory in a low budget quickie like this but, you literally don't learn anything about Nicholas' exact relationship with Marlowe, if he's somehow related to what's happened to Marlowe's wife, or if he's an actual voodoo priest or just some local who knows how to make use of it. It seems as though helping Marlowe get his wife back is just as important to Nicholas as it is to the doctor himself, possibly to prove that the voodoo deity he worships is indeed all-powerful, but that's the only insight we get into him.

Lack of explanation is a big issue with this flick, and that applies to the very core of the story: Marlowe's wife, Evelyn (Ellen Hall). Marlowe claims that she's dead and has been so for 22 years, but apparently, she's one of the undead, as she walks around but never speaks and always stares straight ahead, unblinking. The women whom Marlowe uses in the ceremony to transfer their life essence into Evelyn end up the same way, making me wonder if something like that happened to her originally, as well as question Nicholas' part in all of this. The only explanation that Marlowe himself gives is when he tells Stella, "She is dead only in the sense that you understand that word," which is no help whatsoever. In any case, when Marlowe performs the ceremony with Stella, Evelyn does briefly "come back to life," happily recognizing her husband and asking how she got there. But, as has happened before, she regresses into her walking death state, with the only explanation given being that Stella didn't have the right "affinity." Again, that doesn't help to understand it, and neither does one random scene where Marlowe is seen exposing Evelyn to some kind of rays. At the end of the movie, when the police interrupt Marlowe's attempt to use Betty in the ceremony and fatally shoot him, Evelyn, again, momentarily returns to life. She scans the room, calling for Marlowe, but after he dies, so does she. This time, she's clearly dead, and the other women who've been turned into zombies regain consciousness.

You may expect Ralph (Michael Ames) to turn out to be the hero of this movie, since he's the most traditionally handsome man in the cast, but that's not the case. After turning down his producer asking him to write a horror movie about the recent disappearances on Laurel Road so he can marry Betty Benton, Ralph blunders into that very mystery when, on the way to Betty's home, he runs out of gas on that road and is picked up by Stella Saunders. When she and her car disappear after it randomly stops working and he's gone to the nearby house for help, only to be run off by Dr. Marlowe's housekeeper, Ralph feels he's been made the butt of a big joke. It's only when he finally makes it to Betty's home, having walked two hours to get some gas for his car, that he starts to suspect that something might be wrong, as he learns Stella hasn't arrived. And when she still hasn't shown up by midnight, and Ralph learns she may be the latest disappearance at Laurel Road, he and Betty inform the sheriff. After that, Ralph is little more than a bystander, although he notices how, when Stella is found and brought to Betty's home, she acts strange when Dr. Marlowe shows up and examines her. Moreover, when Stella is drawn back to Marlowe's house, Ralph decides to go over there himself and see what he can learn. While there, he and Betty see Evelyn wandering around, even though Marlowe says she's dead, and they later note that she was dressed and acted in the same manner as Stella. Ralph calls the sheriff and tells him this, only for Marlowe and Nicholas to then use the latter's voodoo power to draw Betty to the house for another ceremony. With the help of a bystander, Ralph manages to tail Betty there and has the man call the police and tell them to get to the house. But, while Ralph finds the tunnel leading to it and comes upon the ceremony in Marlowe's basement, Grego knocks him out before he can do anything, and the sheriff and his deputy are the ones who stop Marlowe. That said, though, the movie ends with Ralph having delivered his producer a complete screenplay based around what happened.

Stella Saunders (Louise Currie), who's mistakenly called "Sally" in the credits, initially has a memorable personality, when she picks Ralph up after he runs out of gas on Laurel Road. It's only while they're driving that they learn who each other is, with Stella revealing that she's Betty's cousin and is going to be the Maid of Honor at the wedding. She also calls Betty's fiance "some sap from Hollywood," and realizes she's riding with this very man when Ralph tells her she knows him because, "I shave him every morning." Fortunately for her, he decides to let it go. But then, Marlowe causes her car to stop, and Stella is abducted by Toby and Grego when Ralph goes to the

house, looking for help. In the house, she's introduced to Marlowe, who uses his hypnotic influence to make her compliant and unable to run away. She still has enough will to ask what's wrong with Marlowe's wife, and is shocked when he claims that she's "dead." But after that, and following the failed ceremony to use her life essence to revive Evelyn, Stella is an emotionless zombie until the end, doing nothing but wandering around in a daze and not reacting to stimuli. The only reaction she has is when Marlowe finds her at Betty's home, as an expression of fright appears on her face and she starts breathing heavily. It's not until Marlowe is fatally shot by the sheriff that Stella becomes herself again. The same also goes for Betty (Wanda McKay), who has probably the most thankless role of the main characters. She's even more of a bystander than Ralph, doing nothing but standing around and observing, as well as tagging along when he goes to the sheriff and later to Marlowe's home following Stella's disappearance. That puts Betty herself in danger, as Marlowe decides she may be the subject necessary for the ceremony, and after getting a hold of one of her silk gloves, he has Nicholas draw her to the house (she actually drives there perfectly, despite the deep trance she's in). Fortunately for her, the sheriff intervenes and saves her and the other women.

The sheriff (Henry Hall) is really lazy and dismissive of Ralph and Betty's claims when they first come to him, making excuses about Stella's disappearance and complaining about the other women who've gone missing, saying, "Sheriff's job in this county used to be a cinch. Now, it's a pain in the neck." But, when Ralph tells him about the "ROAD CLOSED" sign that shouldn't be there, and about how he went to Dr. Marlowe's house but didn't get any luck, the sheriff decides to check it out. He takes his equally lazy and sleepy deputy, Elmer (Dan White), with him, with the guy complaining about how his wife always gets aggravated when the sheriff keeps him out late. At Marlowe's house, the sheriff has Elmer look around outside, while he goes in and talks with the doctor himself. He also searches around the drawing room for clues while Marlowe gets him a sherry (as well as tells his housekeeper to hide Evelyn down in the basement), but finds nothing unusual, nor learns anything from talking with Marlowe. But while he and Elmer are leaving, they come upon Stella after she's wandered off the property and take her over to the Benton house. Neither he nor anyone else find it at all suspicious when Marlowe happens to be the doctor who turns up to examine Stella, but after Ralph and Betty have been out to Marlowe's home and have told the sheriff what they've seen, he begins to realize Marlowe's likely connection to what's been happening. During the climax, he and Elmer are directed to the Marlowe house, are forced to break in, and make their way down to the basement, where they come upon the ceremony. The sheriff fatally shoots Marlowe when he tries to attack them, and he and Elmer keep the others back as the doctor passes away and the women return to their senses.

Filmmaking-wise, Voodoo Man makes use of a good deal of day-for-night cinematography in the outdoor scenes, which is very obvious, despite the black-and-white. However, there are some instances of noteworthy direction and technique, such as extreme close-ups of Dr. Marlowe and Stella's faces when he hypnotizes her, as well as light accentuating their faces in shots where they're shown looking at each other. Obviously, this is reminiscent of those iconic, and creepier, shots in Dracula, but they still get the point across. Also, when Nicholas uses his voodoo to draw someone to Marlowe's house, his growing influence over them is emphasized by the sound of his chanting being audible as they make their way over

there. And during the ceremony with Stella, as Nicholas chants, there's a close-up of two strings tying themselves together. While I don't quite know what they're meant to symbolize, the visual, likely done by pulling them apart and running the film in reverse, looks kind of cool.

I kind of like how lonely and out-of-the-way Laurel Road feels, with the gas station being the only one for quite a distance. And, as ridiculous as it gets, I also like Marlowe's elaborate set-up for capturing women to use in the ceremonies. He has Nicholas operate the gas station near Laurel Road, using that hidden telephone in the building to tell Marlowe when a lone girl is heading his way, and has Toby and Grego put up a "ROAD CLOSED" sign, as well as move a fake hedge, revealing a detour, to send them on the wrong path. There's one spot on this alternate path where Marlowe throws a switch that does something to stop the women's cars (like a lot of stuff in this movie, it's not explained at all), and he also has a ridiculously

sophisticated camera and audio set-up hidden somewhere around there, allowing him to keep tabs on his intended victims via a monitor in his house's laboratory, as well as communicate with Toby and Grego with a microphone. The two of them emerge from a hatch in the ground behind a nearby bush and abduct the women, taking them to the house through an underground tunnel, while the vehicles are disposed of in some manner offscreen.

Marlowe's house, which never gets an establishing exterior shot aside from the front door, looks pretty nice and well-to-do on the inside, though what we mostly see of the first floor are the foyer and the drawing room, where Marlowe introduces Stella to Evelyn, speaks with the sheriff, and later talks with Ralph and Betty (despite the staircase, we never go up to the second floor, although Evelyn does wander downstairs in one scene). In this drawing room, there's not only a large picture of Evelyn above the fireplace, and the phone where Marlowe speaks directly with Nicholas at the gas station, but also a spot behind a curtain where Marlowe goes to fix the sheriff some sherry, as well as sneak out into the

hallway to get his housekeeper to take Evelyn down into the basement. To the left of the staircase is the laboratory filled with electrical equipment, which is also where Marlowe monitors his intended victims when their cars are stopped near the road and where he throws the switch that does so. The basement, accessed through a door in the staircase's side, however, is the most notable part of the house, as at the bottom of the stairs, there's a large room to the left where the ceremonies are performed, with candles all around, Toby and Grego playing drums, Nicholas chanting at an altar, and Evelyn and the intended subject sitting in front of each other, while Marlowe

kneels beside them and tries to encourage the transference of life-force. To the right of the bottom of the stairs is a chamber where the women, or the zombies, are kept contained within cells with glass windows (it makes me think of the scene in The Black Cat, where it's revealed that Poelzig keeps his past wives' preserved bodies in large, glass cases), and are then brought in to participate in the ceremony. And down here is also the entrance to the tunnel that leads to the hatch out near the road.

It's obvious that all of the film's meager budget went into the interiors for Marlowe's house, as none of the other settings are as notable as it or the surrounding countryside. All we see of Betty's upper-class home, which she shares with her mother, are the immediate interiors and living room, as well as an upstairs bedroom where Stella is put when the sheriff brings her back home. The sheriff's office consists of a single room, with his desk, some filing cabinets, a coat/hat rack, and a bench where Elmer is often dozing, and S.K.'s office at the studio is about the same. And when Betty falls under Nicholas' control and goes to Marlowe's house, she and Ralph are in this little bar (which I think is the only location that has a true establishing exterior shot).

While not much is made of it in the long run, it is surprising how meta of a movie this is for its time. Not only is Ralph a Hollywood screenwriter but his place of employment makes reference to the very people and low-tier studios who were making these types of flicks at the time, as he works at the "Banner Motion Picture Company"; Banner Productions was the name of the production company that Sam Katzman and Jack Dietz formed in order to produce movies for Monogram. Speaking of Katzman, Ralph's producer, who appears at both the beginning and end of the movie, is known only as S.K., i.e. Katzman's initials. But where things really get self-reflexive is at the end, when Ralph hands S.K. his newly completed

screenplay for the horror film he's based around what just happened. The title? The Voodoo Man, of course. And as Ralph and Betty, who are now married, head out to begin their honeymoon, S.K. asks Ralph who he thinks should play the title character. Ralph answers, "Say, why don't you try to get that actor, uh, Bela Lugosi? It's right up his alley!"

Interesting direction, nice production design and settings, and some unique screenwriting choices aside, Voodoo Man is mostly much ado about nothing. One reason is how utterly bare bones and blase the script is, as I've been saying. Again, you shouldn't go into something like this expecting a rich, multi-layered story, but it is astonishing how little is explained here, from Dr. Marlowe's random hypnotic powers at the beginning to what exactly is wrong with his wife, what he's trying to accomplish with the voodoo ceremonies using abducted women, and how he learned of this possible cure to begin with. Also, even for the time period, the depiction of voodoo and zombies here is completely ridiculous and

stereotypical, with the silly costumes that both Marlowe and Nicholas wear, Nicholas' chanting and talking about how mighty his deity is (I couldn't make out what he called it and, since it's not likely a real deity anyway, I'm not going to try), and Toby and Grego drumming, as the female zombies just stand around and serve no function, even though Marlowe demands their presence. And as I've already talked about, this movie's concept of zombies is mystifying, like a messy combination of actual voodoo zombies and the living dead, twenty plus years before George Romero made the latter the dominant image of the term. You at least assume that it's all supernatural,

given the nature of the ceremonies and Marlowe saying he needs a woman's "will to live" and her mind, but then, there's that brief moment in the lab where it takes on a scientific nature, as Marlowe exposes his wife to some kind of rays. It's a complete mess that I doubt Robert Charles put much thought into, so I'm not going to put much thought into trying to unravel it.

The other major reason why this flick isn't much to write home about is because it's just not that entertaining. The actors who would most interest you, including Bela Lugosi, aren't given much of anything significant to do, the others are mostly bland and forgettable, and the movie just kind of meanders along, as you watch the one ceremony with Stella fail; the sheriff and deputy "snoop" around the house (the sheriff stays in the drawing room and you don't even see what Elmer is doing outside) and find nothing; Stella wander off the property and get taken to Betty's home, Marlowe and Nicholas draw her back, Ralph and Betty pay Marlowe a visit, Marlowe decide to use Betty and has Nicholas draw her to the house; and the

lackluster ending, where Ralph walks in on the ceremony, gets knocked, and the sheriff and deputy do the same, with the former managing to kill Marlowe and free the girls. Even at just 62 minutes, the pacing here isn't the greatest, and the ho-hum, forgettable, and very soft music (likely previously used music from other Monogram movies, as no actual composer is listed, only a "musical director"; the music for the opening credits practically screams stock) doesn't help. And the attempts at humor, like when Sam, Nicholas' dim-witted assistant at the gas station, annoys Ralph to where he unknowingly drives off before he can gas him up, or Elmer being equally slow, don't land at all.

Like I said, the music score is barely worth talking about, and yet, ironically the man listed as "musical director," Edward Kay, not only frequently worked with William Beaudine (the two of them even died within just three years of each other, in the early 70's), but was actually nominated for an Oscar numerous times! In any case, other than maybe the ethereal music that plays during the ceremonies and some scenes with the zombies, there is nothing I can say about this music. It really leaves no impression.

Yeah, while Voodoo Man may not be one of the absolute worst movies of Bela Lugosi's career, it's also, unfortunately, not that good or even entertainingly bad either. Lugosi does do his expected best, it's always cool to see John Carradine and George Zucco, there are some interesting moments of direction, some of the production design and location work is nice, and the screenwriting has surprisingly self-reflexive aspects about the genre for the time, but make no mistake, the movie is most certainly one of those duds I mentioned before. The big horror actors are badly wasted, including Lugosi, the other characters are bland and unremarkable, the music score is forgettable, and it's not as well-paced as you might think, considering its very short running time. Unless you're a very hardcore Lugosi aficionado, this is one of his that I think you'd be better off skipping.

Garfield Gets a Life (1991)

I actually did know something about this when I first went into it. Back when I was first watching the Garfield primetime specials, I came across a video by a YouTube channel called ElectricDragon505, where the user gave his personal ranking of all twelve. (He was the one who ranked Babes and Bullets at the very top of his list and, as I said back when I reviewed that one, it's not hard to understand why.) At the very bottom was Garfield Gets a Life, not because he felt it was bad, but because the plot was nothing more than Jon trying to get a date, something we've already seen him struggle with a lot, both in other specials and in various episodes of Garfield and Friends. By extension, I also learned that Jon is really the protagonist here, while Garfield just tags along for support, or, rather, to comment on his failures. And I knew I was in for quite an epic dance sequence on Jon's part, given some of the clips featured. While I can't remember what my exact impression of the special was when I first saw it, I do think I liked it more than ElectricDragon505. Upon re-watching it again, I'd say that I would rank it on the lower end as well, but I also think I would put it above Garfield in Paradise, as well as maybe Garfield's Thanksgiving. Regardless, like all of the specials, it is watchable, making for a breezy 22 minutes, and there are a good amount of funny moments to be had, including some jokes that kind of shocked me. However, there is, indeed, not a lot to it plot-wise, Garfield is a supporting character (though he's always present as such), and, above all else, if you don't find the idea of a cartoon centered around Jon's lack of a love-life appealing, you're not likely to get much out of it.

As he goes through his morning routine, Jon realizes he's stuck in a boring rut and needs to get a life. Garfield, by extension, feels that the sooner Jon gets a life, the sooner he can get on with his. But when Jon proves to have a lack of motivation, Garfield pushes him along by giving him a book called How to Make Friends and Fool the Rest. Jon focuses on a chapter about picking up women, but no matter where or how he tries to put it into practice, his attempts fall completely flat. Later, while watching TV with Garfield and Odie, he sees an advertisement for the "Lorenzo School for the Personality Impaired," which promises to help even the most boring, uninteresting people get a life. Jon opts to attend and, during his very first class, about making a good first impression, he meets a woman named Mona, who turns out to be as self-conscious and unsure of herself as Jon. As a result, the two of them hit it off by just being themselves, and they quickly leave the school and go out on a date. But, now that Jon seems to have found somebody, Garfield worries that Mona may drive a wedge between him and his owner.

Like I've said throughout this series of reviews, Garfield Gets a Life is the only one of these specials not to be directed by Phil Roman in any capacity (he still acted as a producer on it). Instead, John Sparey, who'd co-directed the last handful of them with Roman and Bob Nesler, directed it himself. This also ended up being the very last of the specials altogether, as CBS decided there was no longer any need for them since Garfield and Friends was doing so well. Following Garfield Gets a Life, Sparey, in addition to some episodes of that show, would only direct one other project: an animated Christmas-themed TV special called Nick & Noel. Otherwise, he mainly continued working as an animator, having done so in the past on movies like The Black Cauldron, Oliver & Company, Fritz the Cat, Coonskin, and Fire and Ice. Among his last couple of credits in this regard were as a sequence director on Tom and Jerry: The Movie, which Roman directed, and as an animator on The Swan Princess. Sparey died in 2010, at the age of 83.

As others have noted, the special should really be called Jon Gets a Life, as Jon (voiced by Thom Huge) is very much the central figure here. After he and Garfield sit around the breakfast table, suffering from the Monday Blues, he's next seen counting the ceiling tiles in his bedroom (he finds there are 144 in total), then tells Garfield that he'd organize his sock drawer next, but already did it the night before. And when Garfield checks the drawer, he finds that Jon actually put a lot of thought and effort into it, sorting the socks by color and size. As he specifies the different types of socks and where they are (winter socks, summer socks, natural fiber socks, man-made fiber socks, etc.), he realizes that he does, indeed, need to get a life. But after he tries on a very tacky suit, much to Garfield's horror, and walks right into the wall, Jon needs to be pushed into taking further action by looking through the book How to Make Friends and Fool the Rest. He follows its directions about picking up women at various places, like a singles club, the laundromat, the video store, and the beach, but finds himself shot down at every turn, mostly due to his being a massive dork whose attempts at impressing women are the definition of cringe. And in one scene, he's talking to a "woman" in a department store, only for her to turn out to be a mannequin. It gets to the point where, as he and Garfield are sitting on a park bench, Jon says hi to every woman who walks by and they each tell him to go screw himself in some way. After that, he's ready to give up altogether, when he sees the commercial for the Lorenzo School for the Personality Impaired. Hoping they can help him, he enrolls and, during his first class, meets Mona, whom he forms a connection with. Unfortunately, said connection causes concern for Garfield.

Speaking of which, Garfield (voiced by Lorenzo Music) is intent on helping Jon get a life because he's just as bored, adding, "The sooner you get happy with your life, the sooner I can get back to mine." He tags along with Jon and makes snarky, sarcastic comments about him and his sorry attempts to land a date; in other words, he's just doing what he always does. Among his memorable lines and jokes is a shockingly dark comment he makes at the video store: "Can we get Old Yeller? I just love movies with happy endings." (No joke, I burst out laughing and thought, "Oh, my God!") Also, when Jon's attempt at landing a date there leaves him with a videotape shoved in his mouth, the clerk asks him, "Will you be renting that tape, sir?", and Garfield comments, "No, he'll be eating it here." At the beach, Jon gets a beach-ball stuffed in his mouth and, to that, Garfield says, "Nice going, Jon. Here we are, tryin' to find you a life, and all you can think about is eating." And his fainting when he pops the store mannequin's hand off after talking with it has Garfield commenting, "Oh, let's give him a hand for trying," and then clapping. As they then sit on a park bench, Jon laments, "This may come as a surprise to you, Garfield, but I'm just not very good at getting a date," and Garfield, in the most obvious of sarcastic tones, remarks, "No! Go on! You're putting me on!" He proceeds to call out every rebuff Jon gets from a passing woman as a strike, before later accompanying him to the Lorenzo School for the Personality Impaired. There, in a class on making a good first impression, Garfield joins in the exercise about shaking hands and introducing oneself by attempting to do it with a rather unhealthy-looking guy sitting behind him, saying, "Hello, my name is Garfield. You probably notice I'm quite short and have excessive body hair." The guy doesn't respond to him at all. And when, during the part about pretending to speak a foreign language, Jon and Mona walk out, speaking a smattering of French, Garfield grumbles, " Hey, Monsieur Dumb Guy, remember me? What am I, chopped liver? Duck pate? Foie gras?", then wonders, "Why am I getting so hungry?"

Thus begins Garfield's worry that Jon is forgetting about him, reinforced when he eavesdrops on them talking on the porch and Jon simply refers to him as, "My cat." He laments, "Yesterday, I had a name. Yesterday, I was his bosom buddy. His confidant. Today, I'm his cat!" Then, shocked at the idea that a woman, other than his mother, actually likes Jon, Garfield has a dream where he and Mona continue dating, get married, and have a baby, who proceeds to terrorize Garfield. Waking up when the 

baby goes to bite his tail, Garfield attempts to break up the relationship, exclaiming, "I must stop him before he multiplies!" But, when he wedges himself between them and tries to convince Jon to stop dating Mona, she proceeds to scratch Garfield behind the ears. Initially, he tries to resist the sensation, claiming to Jon that she's using him as a way of strengthening her hold on him. But, Garfield starts to fall for her, and even crawls into her lap, as she rubs his back. He futilely continues trying to break them up, but it's clearly a lost cause.,, until Mona turns out to be 

allergic to cats. Garfield isn't exactly broken up about this but then, much to his horror, Jon initially suggests shaving him! He's then on pins and needles, as Jon seems to try to choose between them, but, fortunately, he does ultimately embrace Garfield. That doesn't dissuade Jon from continuing to see Mona, though. Garfield, however, is intent on being their chaperone, saying, "Jon's more than a friend to me. He's my meal-ticket."

Odie (voiced by Gregg Berger) only appears a small handful of times and has no role in the story at all. He shows up at the beginning, happy and carefree, unlike bored Garfield and Jon, with the latter tossing him a piece of toast. He reappears briefly afterward, when Garfield is watching TV (there is no point for him to pop up there, as he literally walks in, then walks off when Garfield turns the TV off), and again when Garfield is talking about how humans should appreciate the, "Simple things in life, like lasagna, a good nap, family." When he puts his arm around Odie as he stands there, panting, Garfield comments, "Dog breath. P.U.," and walks off, as Odie turns to the screen and goes, "Huh?" And finally, he's watching TV with Garfield and Jon, when they see the commercial for the Lorenzo School for the Personality Impaired. 

As Garfield himself notes, it's surprising how, after all of his bad luck, Jon not only finds a woman who likes him in Mona (voiced by June Foray), but also someone who has a similarly awkward, insecure personality. When they meet during the class about making a good first impression, she asks him if hers was okay, saying she has no idea what she's doing. Jon, in turn, asks how his first impression came off, and when neither of them can give satisfactory answers, they both lament that they're ruining it. That breaks the ice, and they stop listening to Lorenzo to have a casual conversation, with Mona admitting, "I was so shy in gym class, I had my sister take my showers for me" (she also later says that, like Jon, she once got her tongue stuck in an elevator door). It also turns out that she was at the beach when Jon made an idiot out of himself with his desperate attempts to impress women but, fortunately, she doesn't recognize him. Eventually, they decide to leave and go out to dinner. That night, they're talking out on Jon's front step, and realize that they can enjoy each other's company by just being themselves. Garfield, realizing what this may lead to, attempts to break them up, but when Mona scratches him behind the ear and then rubs his back, he starts to fall for her as well. But Mona starts sneezing, and has to admit that she's allergic to cats. Moreover, medications don't work, but Jon hates the idea of giving up somebody he connects with so well. While he does opt not to put Garfield through the humiliation of being shaved, he and Mona decide to continue seeing each other, though Garfield is intent on chaperoning them.

While he comes off as big and boisterous on the TV, in reality, Lorenzo (voiced by Frank Welker) is much more low-key when Jon and Garfield meet him in person. Lorenzo says, "That was a lip synch, you know. My body, Charlton Heston's voice. It's, uh, a theatrical thing. It's done quite often." (Trust me, he did not have Charlton Heston's voice in that commercial.) He also gets Jon's last name wrong, calling him "Mr. Airbuckle." In his class, he first reminds everyone of the company motto, "If you can

get a pulse, you can get a life," then tells them to check for a pulse and raise their hands if they don't have one. Apparently, several do raise their hands, so Lorenzo has his assistant give them each a second opinion. He continues on with the class, first teaching them how to make a good first impression (looking someone right in the eye, giving them a firm handshake, and saying, "Hello. My name is 'so-and-so,"), how to dress for success (by showing off his rather ugly wardrobe ensemble, with his plaid shirt and slacks giving Garfield the urge to play golf), and finally, pretending to speak a foreign language. Lorenzo starts the latter lesson with "Canadian," saying, "Now this is an easy language to learn. You just talk like you normally would, except occasionally, you throw in an 'eh.'" His assistant and receptionist, Priscilla (voiced by Julie Payne), doesn't say or do much, but she's memorable because of how she's a rather bubble-headed, overly happy woman, with a design that's a tad off-putting, to say the least.

While the character designs and backgrounds are back to the traditional Garfield style here, as opposed to some of the last few specials, Garfield Gets a Life is notable in other ways. As ElectricDragon505 said, there's some really good animation here, with the standout being the dance sequence with Jon. Like Franklin's cringe-inducing rap in It's Spring Training, Charlie Brown, words and a few images can't do this bit justice, although I mean that as a compliment in this case. The animation in this entire scene is really 

good and fluid but, as corny and out-of-date as his dance moves are, it's still amazing to see Jon let loose the way he does. He twirls this woman around until he sends her flying towards the bar; you get a close-up of his fancy footwork; another close-up of him shaking his butt (not the first time you see this, unfortunately); him dancing in silhouette; and so on. You also get some cutaways to Garfield's tail swaying as he sits at the bar, corresponding to one of the lyrics in the Temptations song that plays during the scene, 

while the other people on the dance floor grow more and more aghast at what Jon's doing. The animation is also really good during the opening credits sequence, with Jon flexing his non-existent muscles after removing his shirt and shaking his butt (for the first time) at the camera after pulling on his pants, while Garfield has some not so enthusiastic reactions to this. The character of Leonard is quite well-animated in and of himself, as he's always moving and

gesturing, and in one instance, he stretches his neck to get his face right up into the camera, like it was in his TV commercial. And Garfield's movements near the end, when he declares himself Jon and Mona's chaperone, are quite quick and fluid as well.

While it doesn't get as crazy as it could, Garfield's dream about Jon and Mona marrying and having a kid who turns out to be a little terror, at least for him, is animated to come off as a nightmare. This mainly applies to when the scene turns to Christmas and the kid, who's drawn and animated to look psychotic, rabidly tears apart a present that Garfield was holding (there was literally nothing underneath the wrapping paper, by the way), then goes after Garfield himself. He grabs his tail as he tries to run away, and while Garfield breaks away, he runs and gets himself

cornered up against a gigantic wall. You then see the baby crawling towards the screen in a fast and threatening manner before, in a quick series of close-ups, he grabs Garfield's tail and bites into it (yeah, this baby has all of his teeth, by the way). That's when Garfield wakes up and realizes he has to stop this from happening.

The special's presentation and style are also a bit different from what you typically get in a Garfield cartoon. Both the opening credits and that dance sequence make it feel as though the special turned into a music video, especially the latter, with its quick cuts, close-ups corresponding to the song on the soundtrack, and the stylized background in some shots (that's actually just how that singles club's background looks, combined with the dance floor's colored lights). Also, when Garfield is watching TV during the opening, we briefly see some live action

footage when he turns it to the "All National Anthems All The Time" channel and it plays O, Canada. Speaking of which, Garfield watches a couple of shows that are done in a different art style than the actual cartoon itself. One is Yukon Stinky, a show featuring a Dudley-Do-Right kind of character (as well as a poor dog who gets mauled by a bear off-screen), and a noir-like gangster flick with a generic-looking lead character. 

As you've already grasped, much of the humor comes from just how little of a life Jon actually has and what a dork he is when trying to impress women, with Garfield adding his sarcastic quips. When the special begins, you see how utterly bored both of them are, as they both resort to counting the ceiling tiles in the rooms they're in just to kill time (this comes back around when, at the Lorenzo School for the Personality Impaired, they know they've found the right room when they see that everyone in there is counting ceiling tiles before class). When Jon goes

into detail about his overly organized sock drawer, he decides that he needs to get a life, saying, "There's more to life than just socks," and Garfield adds, "There's underwear." But it's when he starts trying to pick up women that the comedy really starts. While he does, believe it or not, find a woman willing to dance with at the singles club, he messes it up with his dancing. Once he's chased nearly everyone out of the club, someone off-screen yells, " Hey, jerk! Disco is dead!" Jon is shocked at that revelation, and on the way out, says, "Boy! You learn a dance and then,

zango! Fourteen years later, they change it!" Garfield remarks, "Go figure." At the laundromat, he meets a woman who's washing a pink tutu and asks if she's a ballerina  She says yes, then points at his boxers, which have teddy bears on them, as Garfield holds them up and she asks, "Are you a dweeb?"; Garfield answers, "Why, yes, he is." And after his disastrous attempt at the video store, which leaves him with a VHS crammed in his mouth, Jon tries to impress some bikini babes on the beach by stretching and

flexing while asking if they've seen his "missing Olympic swimming medals." He then walks off, boasting about how he's planning to do some push-ups, and, coming upon a balding guy with glasses who's buried in the sand, kicks some in his face and tells him to get out of his way. He's about to call him a pipsqueak, when the guy pops out of the sand and reveals he has the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger! That's how Jon gets the beach-ball crammed into his mouth. And you know something's up when Jon is talking to this "woman" who's staring at him with a blank, unblinking expression on her face... and she's then revealed to be a mannequin.

When he and Garfield are sitting on a park bench, Jon gets harshly turned down by every woman who walks by, even when he just says hello. He gets responses like, "Don't flatter yourself!", "Take a hike!" (Jon tries to laugh that one off by responding, "No thanks. I just took one,"), and, "Buzz off!" He then pulls out a guitar and tries to sing the blues, as it starts raining, only for a big guy with his gut hanging out to grab the guitar, throw it on the ground, and start stomping on it! Garfield comments, "And I thought fat people were jolly." While later watching TV with Garfield

and Odie, and seeing Lorenzo's commercial, Jon can't help but hide his face after Lorenzo asks, "Is your idea of a fun Saturday night sittin' home, watchin' television with your kitty cat? [Garfield blows a raspberry at that.] Are you so boring that you could make cheese yawn? Are you so out of touch, you think disco is still in? Have you ever passed time by counting ceiling tiles? Compared to you, does a slug seem hyperactive?" And at the end of the commercial, when Lorenzo says, "Our motto is, 'If you can get a pulse, you can get a life,'" Garfield tells Jon, "Well, maybe they'll take you anyway."

Speaking of Garfield, it's funny watching him be as bored as Jon at the beginning, mainly because Jon leads such a dull life. He tells the audience that he intends to help Jon get a life, "Because Jon's my friend, and I'd do anything to help my friend, no matter what." But then, he pulls up a newspaper and adds, "Unless, of course, there's somethin' good on TV," and realizes it's time for Yukon Stinky. But,he seems just as bored watching the TV, even after the show is over, and like Jon, resorts to counting the ceiling tiles. In addition to his many jokes while Jon

is trying to get a date, he also has some funny moments when he's sitting in class with him. When Lorenzo says the next part of the day's lesson is learning how to dress for success, Garfield gasps, pulls on his fur, and exclaims, "I'm naked!" And when Lorenzo is getting everyone to speak "Canadian" by occasionally adding in an "eh," Garfield remarks, "Great. Let's all go to town, eh? Maybe we can have some lunch, eh?" And twice during the finale, including the very end, he does an imitation of those 

suction plush car toys that were once really popular. Determined to not let Jon go off with Mona without a chaperone, he literally grabs some suction cups, climbs up the back of Jon's car, and attaches himself to the back window, saying, "I saw this on a freeway once." As you can see, he even puts on the same blank expression as those toys.

There's also some humor pertaining to the often ridiculous or inane stuff you run into in everyday life. This especially applies to the television, with Garfield coming across the channel that plays nothing but national anthems, then finds an infomercial for "Ajax Nose Hair Tweezers," where the announcer says, "And if you're not completely satisfied with your Ajax Nose Hair Tweezers, we'll refund all your tweezed nose hair!" It also takes a bite out of the inherent phoniness of this kind of programming, with Lorenzo's commercial featuring some painfully fake 

testimonials. One guy, who looks like his mind is off on another planet, states in a bland, emotionless voice, "I thought I'd never have a personality, but after only fourteen weeks at Lorenzo's School for the Personality Impaired, I now have a great personality." Another guy is dressed up like a matador and, with a similarly vacant look, says, in an even more monotone voice, "Six months ago, I was a school crossing guard. Crossing the street was my life. Now, thanks to Lorenzo's School for the Personality 

Impaired, I am a bullfighter." As the camera pulls back to show him standing in a bullfighting ring while wielding a club, he adds, "And why am I carrying this stick, you ask? Why, that's to keep the women away." In addition, while the commercial shows an image of a posh, fancy university, when Jon and Garfield go to the school in reality, it's a small, rundown building that looks as though it's nearly condemned. And finally, there's a bit of a lesson in how, when it comes down to it, Jon and Mona only need to be themselves to form a bond, rather than follow Leonard's vapid advice.

But as enjoyable as this special can be, I understand why it's not likely to be anyone's favorite. While the plots for these specials, for the most part, can hardly be called mind-bending or complex, this one, in particular, is built around the one joke of Jon not being able to get a date. Not only was that a big part of Garfield's Thanksgiving, two years prior to this, but, like ElectricDragon505 said, if you've watched a lot of Garfield and Friends, you've already seen this scenario a good number of times, often with Liz the veterinarian. There is a nice spin on it here with the 

character of Mona, but still, this is well-worn territory, as is Garfield tagging along on Jon's date and imagining what his life will be like if Jon ever manages to settle down and have a family, specifically with a baby that proceeds to torment him. And speaking of Garfield, while he does have plenty of screentime here (there's no scene that he's not in), some may find it disappointing that he's reduced to a supporting role and that Jon is the protagonist. I don't have a problem with it, because I like Jon, and I think the humor here is effectively funny, as I've gone into, but it is a shame that the series of specials couldn't have ended on a more overall crowd-pleasing note.

Music-wise, this is one special where I find the songs to be more memorable than the actual score by Desiree Goyette and David Benoit. In fact, most of the incidental music feels like extensions of those songs, anyway. There are some noteworthy pieces, though, like this one that plays when Garfield and Jon are so bored that they're counting the ceiling tiles, which sounds like it's signifying the ticking away of time and just how meaningless their lives are at the moment. There's also this slightly bluesy guitar bit when Jon laments his inability to get a date, leading into when he, very briefly, actually sings the blues. And when Garfield dreams about Jon marrying Mona and their having a child, the music transitions from a wondrous, dreamy piece to, when the scene switches to Christmas, a version of Jingle Bells that becomes nightmarish when the kid chases and corners him. As for the actual songs, the cartoon opens with B.B. King performing Monday Morning Blues, emphasizing how much of a rut Garfield and Jon are stuck in as they go through their morning routine. Then, after he was absent in Garfield's Feline Fantasies, Lou Rawls returns for one last opening credits song, this one called Spare Time. Basically, the song tells Jon to do what this entire cartoon is about: get a life. And when Jon dances at the singles club, it's to a song by The Temptations called Shake Your Paw, which matches how out of date his dance moves are (it's still a nice, upbeat song, though, and you can hear Lorenzo Music adding in some brief instances of backup as Garfield).

So, yeah, as the last of the primetime specials, Garfield Gets a Life isn't the best one they could've ended on, but it's far from the worst, too. If you don't want to see a 22-minute cartoon revolving around the oft-used plot of Jon trying to get a date, with Garfield himself being a supporting character (albeit one with a big chunk of screentime), then this isn't for you. But still, you'd be depriving yourself of a lot of truly funny moments and jokes, some of which are rather shocking in how daring they are, really good animation, some noteworthy instances of style that you don't tend to get in these cartoons, and fun songs on the soundtrack. Trust me, when it comes to Garfield, you could do a whole lot worse.